I would install a graphics card in my PC just for the occasional game, except it would ruin the whole concept of a completely #silentPC with zero moving parts. #0dBA #fanless
Even if I could managed to get a #PassivelyCooled graphics card, it would block the airflow, because it sticks out 90 deg from the motherboard. My open air case does have a card cage to twist it 90 degrees that I can install, but still.
Might need a new PSU, too. Mine is only 500 W (Seasonic Prime TX-500 Fanless)
Apparently the only halfway decent passively cooled graphics card was the Palit KalmX RTX 3050 6 GB, and is no longer made.
Graphics cards in general have a poor orientation for convection cooling. You can see that even if I installed this thing vertically, the fins would get no convection airflow, at all. And if I installed it normally, it would block all convection flow through my CPU cooler.
QuietPC in the UK says they have the KalmX 3050 in stock, but two years ago, when I tried to order my CPU from them, they couldn't fulfill the order because the international payment wouldn't go through, something that has never, ever been a problem before ordering from the EU or Asia, which I do every so often. Probably a #Brexit thing.
I ended up getting a much better CPU, though, a Core i5-12600K instead of the 12400T, and the 12600K runs just fine with my Noctua NH-P1 passive cooler.
Anyway, the PC I built in 2022 is:
Thermaltake Core P3 chassis
Gigabyte Z690 UD AX mobo
Intel Core i5-12600K CPU
32 GB Kingston HyperX Fury DDR5-4800 RAM
500 GB Samsung 980PRO SSD
Noctua NH-P1 cooler
Seasonic Prime TX-500 PSU
Cinebench R23 = 17513 (no overclock, -135 mV undervolt, 88°C under sustained load)
I've since added an old 500 GB SATA SSD just to install games (Halo Master Chief Collection and FFXIV), but I mean to put in a new 1 TB SSD with heatsink in the second m.2 slot.
The only thing it doesn't do well is graphics-intensive games, but it held up just fine playing 6 simultaneous instances of BlueStacks 5 on 2 monitors running DanMachi Memoria Freese. (Yes, I was insane playing six accounts at once.)
The ambient noise level in my bedroom at night is about 30 dBA. It's eerie.
Gemma ⭐️🔰🇺🇸 🇵🇭 🎐